Revised: March 13, 2024
The Xerces Society, Inc. has compiled this privacy policy to better serve those members, donors and website visitors who are concerned with how their ‘Personally Identifiable Information’ (PII) is being used online. PII, as described in US privacy law and information security, is information that can be used on its own or with other information to identify, contact, or locate a single person, or to identify an individual in context. Please read our privacy policy carefully to get a clear understanding of how we collect, use, protect or otherwise handle your Personally Identifiable Information. By using this website as a member, donor or visitor, you are accepting the terms of this privacy policy.
We retain the right to modify this policy at any time and to announce the modification with a modification date on this policy webpage. We will not change the purpose of this policy which is to protect your privacy while pursuing our mission of protecting invertebrates and their habitats. Your use of the website after modification to the terms of this policy means you have accepted the changes.
Personal Information Collection
Website, Blog, and App Visitors
We do not collect information from visitors to our site without your permission. We do collect information when you complete a registration form, sign-up for a newsletter or otherwise enter your information on our site.
Members and Donors
As part of the membership or donation process, we collect information on donors including name, address, phone, email and payment/donation history.
Personal Information Use
Website Visitors
We may use the information we collect from you when you sign up for our newsletter, or respond to a survey or membership communication for the purposes specified on the information form you completed.
Members and Donors
We may use the information you provide for purposes such as acknowledging your payments/donations, contacting you with questions, sending you Xerces’ news and updates at your request, and contacting you about membership or donation opportunities. We do send group emails but if you do not want to receive those messages, you can easily unsubscribe from the email.
We do not trade, rent or sell any information collected with or to any other business or organization.
Personal Information Protection for Visitors, Members and Donors
We protect your PII in a number of ways.
Your PII is contained behind secured networks and is only accessible by a limited number of persons who have special access rights to such systems, and are required to keep the information confidential. In addition, all information is encrypted via Secure Socket Layer (SSL) technology.
Xerces’ employees and volunteers may have access to the PII of members, donors and visitors but only when access is needed to fulfill their duties. As a condition of their work with Xerces, employees and volunteers are bound by provisions in employee and volunteer handbooks, which contain strict rules concerning the protection of confidential information, including all PII.
We implement a variety of security measures when a user enters, submits, or accesses their information to maintain the safety of your personal information.
We use regular malware scanning.
Cookies
We do not use cookies for tracking purposes. We honor Do Not Track (DNT) signals and do not track, plant cookies, or use advertising when a Do Not Track browser mechanism is in place.
You can choose to have your computer warn you each time a cookie is being sent or you can choose to turn off all cookies. You do this through your browser settings. Since each browser is a little different, look at your browser’s help menu to learn the correct way to modify your cookies.
Third-Party Disclosure
Except as noted in this section, we do not transfer your PII to outside parties. The term “outside parties” does not include our website hosting partners and any other parties who assist us in conducting our business or serving our members so long as those parties agree to keep this information confidential. We may also release information when its release is appropriate to comply with the law, enforce our site policies, or protect ours or others’ rights, property or safety.
Information that you submit on or through social media networking, such as a response to a blog or a request for user-provided content, may become public in accordance with that site’s privacy policy.
Anonymized, non-personally identifiable website visitor information (such as the number of page views) may be provided to other parties for marketing, advertising, or other uses.
Third-Party Links
Occasionally, we may include links to external, third-party websites. We provide these links only as a convenience to our users. We do not own or operate these external sites and have no responsibility or liability for the content of these linked sites. You are responsible for learning and following the privacy policies and terms of use of any linked site.
We collect information using Google Analytics to provide a better experience for our users and inform the development of this site. This information may include demographic and technical information. Please review Google's Privacy Policy for more information.
Opting out of Google Advertising or Analytics
Users can set preferences for how Google advertises to you by changing your ad settings through Google. Alternatively, you can opt out by using the Network Advertising Initiative’s consumer opt-out service or by using the Google Analytics Opt-out Add-on browser extension.
Children
Other than the Xerces X Kids program, we do not: (a) specifically market to persons under the age of 13; and/or (b) knowingly collect, either online or offline, PII from children. PII collected from children as part of the X Kids program is collected only with prior consent from a parent or guardian, is not made public, is used solely by us to administer the program, and will not be sold or transferred to outside parties.
Contact
If you have any questions about this privacy policy or how we manage our sites, please contact us at [email protected].